Voting closes Sunday. This is a highly viewed list. Please take a moment to vote.
"Please share your Top 10 Tools for Learning to help me build the 2012 Top 100 Tools list.
What is a “learning tool”? This could be a tool you use for teaching, training or creating learning content/solutions for others, and/or a tool you use for your own personal or professional learning.
Voting rules
Please name TEN specific tools rather than generic technologies (e.g. “Blogger” or “WordPress”, rather than “blogs” or “blogging”)
A vote for Google will be a vote for Google Search, so if you want to vote for other Google tools, you will need to to name them indvidually, e.g. Google Docs, Google Reader. Note too, that a vote for Google Apps is for the badged collection of Google Apps for your organisation – not a generic term for all Google apps.
A vote for Microsoft Office will be split over Word and PowerPoint, so please vote individually for the tools, i.e. Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook etc.
The list doesn’t have to be in any order of preference."

Friday, September 28, 2012

Today on social media I saw someone write gritty, gross details of her cat's stomach ailment and another person described the moves that she learned in her yoga pole dancing class (with names too adult to share here.)

I'm trying to understand why either of them would think those two things would enlighten or improve the lives of other people.

Don't make this mistake

I am going to admit something here. One time, about two months after I joined Twitter, someone sat next to me at an airport and unashamedly did the unthinkable right beside me! I tweeted about his flagrantly loud gastric distress and my shock. At the same time someone at a workshop in Virginia was talking about how useful Twitter was and was showing my Twitter stream as a good example of someone who was so helpful.

And across goes my ill-advised Tweet.

When I got the direct message, I was humiliated and deleted the offending Tweet but I couldn't take it back. I looked like an idiot and made someone else look dumb too. I'll never forget what I learned that day.

Twitter is not a confidante.

It isn't your long lost friend who lets you whisper secrets in his ear while you go stumbling through life. She isn't smiling and nodding her head in rapt attention at your every word. Neither is Tumblr or Facebook or any other social media tool.

Social media is made up of many many people. It is a complex ecosystem that you cannot ever understand. You never know WHO is looking at your stream. Never. You know the sequence of events but you are the only one - others splash in and out of your streams like Hobbits heading to Mordor. Every tweet, status update, and post stands alone.

Please learn from my humiliation. Cat barf and pornographic yoga poses don't belong in the stream of a professional and neither should you share it if a big guy sits next to you and makes a intestinal noise that would cause middle school boys to go into hysterics. If you have to talk about those things, join Path and friend just a few close people who love you enough to even share the more personal things about your life.

The easiest way to negate your nobility is to throw mud on yourself.

Yes, be a real person. You can share some about your life. But the unsavory and potentially disgusting parts of your life should be kept private. Your short lived desire for someone out there to hear and understand your situation isn't worth the long term impact you can have on your professional image if the wrong person is looking at your stream at the wrong time.

I'm so lucky that the person who I disappointed respected me enough to tell me I screwed up so I could learn a hard lesson. Don't say that you've never done it because you might have but just didn't know.

Tweet well and prosper.

Photo Credit: Big Stock, may not be used without licensing from Big Stock

Thursday, September 27, 2012

I want to be captivating. I want to entrance students with my subject. I want students fascinated to walk into my classroom.

I am the teacher of THIS subject. I can't make all their subjects captivating, that isn't my job. I can speak of the importance of English, Math, Science, History and pull a little into my topic, but I will make my class one they want to come to.I will be that teacher who captivates them.

When I see the spark in their eyes, I will fan it with my energy, excitement, and education in the subject until it flames into a bonfire that will never go out.

I will drive myself to be interesting and interested in what interests my students. I will be on top of my game and push myself to innovate more and be more.

I will never let a filing cabinet of lesson plans determine what is next. I will take every lesson and add one innovative element and do ONE thing differently.

I will take the lessons that I know bore students and MAKE THEM BETTER.

I will take those lessons that get students EXCITED and figure out what it is about those lessons and DO THAT MORE.

I'm not here to ENTERTAIN or BABYSIT, I'm here to EDUCATE, ENGAGE and EXCITE them about learning.

I will gamify my classroom and allow them to LEVEL up their learning in ways that give HONEST praise for ACHIEVEMENTS earned and an understanding of FAILURE that it is part of the learning journey, not a dead end. I will never give false praise or let kids lie in thinking that they are failing when they are learning. I will never say a child is learning when they are just taking up space. Honesty is part of what I do. Students and teachers trust my word and integrity so when I speak, everyone knows it is out of a sincere heart.

My classroom will be a safe place of mutual respect, common sense, and discipline. It won't feel like a toboggan ride down a virgin hillside, but an intentional trek on a journey of discovery.

When I see the spark, I'll see the possibility another flame has begun.
When I see my students hurry to class, I'll know I've won.
When they are so excited that they are teaching me and each other more than I'm teaching them, I'll know I'm done.

They have been captivated and are becoming captivating teachers themselves.
I don't make students, I inspire teachers, leaders, and thinkers to make themselves more.

I don't make copies in school, I make originals.
My students aren't numbers, they are individuals.

Each one has a unique mystique that I will use to pique their interest in a personalized way.

While I teach among fantastic teachers, I have to teach like I'm the only excited, professional teacher that they will see all day. Not every teacher relates to every student. I will fall flat on some of them, but I will work at being captivating, I am the only classroom I can control. I am the only teacher teaching this subject this year.

Being captivating starts with lighting my own fire of learning, love, and longing every day.
I will learn something new every day.
I will love my students.
I will long to be the teacher who doesn't give up, gives all she has, and gives kids hope for their future.

I will capture my own negative attitudes, trite platitudes, and wobbly incertitudes and turn them into
grateful gratitude, unstoppable aptitude, and a determined mood as I
and conclude that my students will not delude me or elude me!

I will do whatever it takes to reach them, teach them, and touch them.
They are made in God's image and deserve my respect. I will be the captivating, loving, unstopping teacher that I want my own children to have.

My classroom isn't about me, my convenience, or my own way - it is about my students. It is always about my students.

I don't expect them to love me. I don't yearn for popularity. I want a reputation. A reputation for being fair, for loving my subject and for loving them.

They are children and I am an adult. I have control over my emotions and can choose my response to life. I'll flee any lunchroom, locker room, or teacher's room that zaps my energy and attitude with negativity.

I'll pray every day and look for new ways to reach these kids.

These precious students are mine
I'll love them all the time
To teach them things they couldn't
and lots of things they wouldn't
have ever done without me,
a teacher, the modern nobility.

Photo Credits: Big Stock, used under license. No permission for reuse.

Nice article on student advisory groups as part of school climate reform. The climate in a school is so important.
"According to the latest National School Climate Study (2012) "A growing number of State Depart¬ments of Education are focusing on school climate reform as an essential component of school improvement and/or bully prevention" (page. 2). Schools are often looking for quality ways to create a safe atmosphere for students. Using advisory groups is one way to promote a healthier and more nurturing school climate.
Student advisory groups are not what you are probably thinking. This doesn't just mean that school social workers and school psychologists work with groups of students who are in need. Advisory groups are small groups of students that span the grades in the school system and every staff member has a part in it. It can help make a large school feel a little bit smaller."

"The students were surprised that I was allowing handheld games. I made the decision for several reasons, one of which is that I don't like to ban things that I think have positive potential. I feel that it is our job as educators to teach students how to use something properly rather than ban it because it makes us uncomfortable.
We do that a lot in education. We don't like something or do not fully understand it so we ban it. However, some very innovative districts are researching ways to allow students to bring in their own devices. They understand that we either get on board with technology because it's an integral part of our students' existence or we get left behind, and schools can't afford to get left behind.
In a report entitled BYOT: How Personal Technology is Transforming the Classroom, Greenwood-Henke says, "The "Y" and "O" are much more important that the "T" in BYOT"."

A linked in survey reviews the technologies on their way out in the next 5 years. An interesting post for office managers and administrators of all kinds to read. I think that you should ask what is replacing these things. If you're blocking Skype and VOIP, you're stuck with a desktop phone, for example.
Topping the list.
"1. Tape recorders (79 percent)
2. Fax machines (71 percent)
3. The Rolodex (58 percent)
4. Standard working hours (57 percent)
5. Desk phones (35 percent)
6. Desktop computers (34 percent)"

A new study on permanent school turnaround. How to know it is a true turnaround and not just a temporary spike. Read this article and the supporting research.
"What makes one low-performing school turn around and build momentum over time, while another, seemingly similar school tries the same strategies but continues to struggle?
It's not just particular programs or practices, but the interplay of school implementation with district policies and support, according to the Institute of Education Sciences' Turning Around Low-Performing Schools project—the most comprehensive federal research on such schools to date."

Jure is on the money when talking about social media and influence. Klout, Kred, etc. it really probably doesn't mean much. He points out that someone tweeting 100 times in a day is likely not to influence much of anything. I agree. There are people that I read their every tweet and then there are those that are such a firehose that it is just hit or miss. I'd rather have someone that pots 20 or less times a day at max than a post every few minutes. Can you really curate and check out that much content anyway?

Monday, September 24, 2012

For those of you interested in understanding fundamentals about the Flat Classroom projects, from kindergarten and up, we maintain a free, open help wiki that you may review to get information. This is our current guide for how we do things as we are always improving projects.

Librarians are so important. I love this article about librarian Kristen Hearne and the hard work she's doing to help teachers and students get what they need to be successful. This education week article calls librarians "a school's secret weapon." A good librarian has always been one of the greatest assets a school can have. Teachers, admins, we're all important, but never underestimate the importance of a great librarian. They deserve our respect and appreciation. IF you've got a great librarian, take a moment right now to say thank you. You may never realize what it will mean.

IF you've got your feed on feedburner move it now. Many are moving to feedblitz which only costs is you have email subs. My email subscriptions are already over there because they have always had a better mail setup. I had feedburner because I could move my blog anywhere, sadly - I can't move my feed.
While traffic may be low - as Google slowly gets rid of their powertools like iGoogle and Feedburner, they are igniting the ire of heavy users of those services and a distrust of Google. Move over Microsoft, there might be a new "man" in town to "stick it to." ;-)

These are complete mini-topics that are a week's worth of activities and lesson plans on each topic for ages 4-11. This pulls together lesson plans, interactive whiteboard resources, and printables and will be helpful for teachers in a tight or who need to quickly emphasize a topic where they know students have problems.

I love this activity finder at TES iBoard. They have more than 700 free activities that you can use with your Interactive white board for ages 4-11. You can search by topic. If you have an interactive whiteboard, you should use this site. A subscription lets you easily share the activities with your pupils and they can access them anywhere without a log on. That is very useful.

Here are some of the public notes of most commented upon items from the book I coauthored Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds. You do have to make your notes public to make posts, but I think that highlights may share whether or not they are public. I like to see the things that resonate.

These are complete mini-topics that are a week's worth of activities and lesson plans on each topic for ages 4-11. This pulls together lesson plans, interactive whiteboard resources, and printables and will be helpful for teachers in a tight or who need to quickly emphasize a topic where they know students have problems.

I love this activity finder at TES iBoard. They have more than 700 free activities that you can use with your Interactive white board for ages 4-11. You can search by topic. If you have an interactive whiteboard, you should use this site. A subscription lets you easily share the activities with your pupils and they can access them anywhere without a log on. That is very useful.

If social media has given us the gift of being afraid to speak the truth in love, then we are a sad lot indeed. Speech isn't free, it often costs our speech of mind, but the flaw may be inherent in Facebook's design. It is designed to make us feel good with the partial reinforcement of being "liked" every time we go there. Every human wants to feel liked, so they are catering to that desire.

But liking you as a person and liking what you say are two different things in life.

The deafening silence of the lack of respectful discourse on issues that matter is upsetting.

We only have a "like" button on Facebook. This is not a good thing for balanced conversation and news sites like the Wall Street Journal are carrying stories agreeing with this perspective. There has been a scam running for years claiming to allow people to install the dislike button. People want to do it, they just can't.

People are coming to facebook and getting "liked" and only the most vehement post verbally in disagreement, so then you get everyone who "liked" the post descending and those who didn't like it but couldn't mark the discussion can't follow it.

This makes it feel like "me and my buddies agree and you don't, so you're wrong" on almost every issue. No one wants to disagree because they literally know they aren't liked in that group and will be the butt of a group of people who all agree. I know what Zuckerburg was doing, but for meaningful discourse it isn't a good thing.

It makes it perfect for marketing. People can easily "like" your product, but to say they dislike it, they have to put it in writing and take the time to comment - something that is easily blocked.

We need to be able to follow things we don't like to learn and converseFacebook isn't the best place to have conversations and yet so many people are having them there. There needs to be a way to track conversations on topics where you "disagree" and don't "like" but the only way you can follow conversations now is to "like" them which implies agreement.

It is all "feel-goody" from a partial reinforcement standpoint but as it relates to real life, it is a lie.

The very nature of Facebook is to ostracize and gang up on the dissenting voice. By nature it makes majorities of people who circle around conversations. Just because you have a group of friends who agree with you doesn't make you right. The majority isn't always right either.

So, then, you have these odd statements that languish with no likes, but the person who writes them has no idea that the statement is off or offensive. It is good for Facebook but is it good for the person?

They liked it, so I'm OK.I remember once that a Mom posted horrid things about her 10 year old son on her own Facebook page. In a small town like mine, such things will haunt her child forever. I messaged her privately to mention that I'm not sure she came across as she intended. Her flip response was "well I had a bunch of people like it so it was OK with them, they got it." No they didn't, I heard someone talking about what she said later as shocked as I was that she'd say such a thing.

She heard what she wanted to hear. In 4-5 likes out of her thousand something friends, she heard an endorsement. In the quietness of the lack of likes, I saw people mourning for a Mom who put something out there that she'd regret later.

Like doesn't mean you're right. It might just mean someone likes you and sympathizes with you - not that they like what you said. The two are so confused.

Ranting EncouragedNow we're in the political season and I read the other day that a study showed that if a friend rants on Facebook about a political issue, that other friends are more likely to change their mind. So, now, political parties could, quite literally, encourage ranting.

There are times to rant, of course. There are issues worth ranting about. But the pure evil of one candidate over the pure angelicness of another are lies. No man is perfect and there are things every candidate has big issues in my mind. Don't give me this "my candidate is a better person than the other candidate" stuff. I want facts and rants are often personal attacks. It is the nature of the political beast.

You can like it or you can engage the ranter in conversation if you disagree? Those are your only two choices? Are we all idiots? You never fight an angry man or woman on their own turf and that is what you're doing. Then, you have to ruin your whole day by seeing who said what in the ridiculous escalating conversation that if you ignore, will leave you looking like an idiot. Come on! Who does that unless they just love fussing. I don't.

Conversation Tracking is Great, but why should I have to "like it" to track it?The biggest issue I have with Facebook is what it is doing to conversation. With blogging, you have people conversing on both sides. On tumblr, you can converse, but there is no way to really track the conversation.. Facebook is one of the few places you can track a conversation but you have to "like" the conversation to do so. I think this is a flaw in Facebook and needs to be fixed for the good of all of us.

I may not agree with a person to want to follow in on the conversation and I shouldn't have to fill up my bookmark bar to do it.

I have to "like" a political candidate to follow what he/she posts publicly on Facebook. Really? That is an endorsement. Maybe I want to read and get to know them, but that is going to be hard to do. I guess I can follow them personally, maybe that is what I'm supposed to do. But isn't that still public for everyone to see? Once I like someone, everyone thinks that is a vote, and I'm not willing to do that, especially now that our likes are basically used as advertisements. (Someone goes to a political candidate's page and they'll see their friends who "like" that candidate.)

Wake up to the flaws in FacebookThere are times in my life when I have woken up and realized something is amiss.

The way Facebook is designed inherently causes mob behavior and I don't like it one bit. I'm so glad that everyone can feel good about how much they are liked but we have real world problems to deal with and Facebook is where many people go to talk about them. It may not be the best forum for balanced conversations where multiple voices are heard.

Facebook is a polarizing influence on society.

So, talk about issues, but if you want to have real, multiple perspectives, you will have to go somewhere else. The problem is that "everyone" is quite literally on Facebook and so these flaws will continue to influence society in ways that are not for the best - the polarization of people. Right now we need common ground, not a widening chasm.

I dis-like the echo chamber Facebook is becoming. So, for now, I'll just leave these wandering thoughts out here on my blog and continue to ponder a social media platform that is good at getting people to come back but may actually be harming the discourse we need to have in society.

I am testing a wemo along with 2 students. If you're a student or teacher, stay tuned to my blog for a very exciting opportunity to test these devices. wemo with ifttt.com is AWESOME and I"m having a blast playing with it.

Friday, September 21, 2012

As I sit here and watch the pulse beat on the ankle of my left foot, I see that as proof that God is not done with me yet. He has a plan, although I may not see it. The way I see it, if you've got a pulse, you've got a purpose.

I took yesterday off, the second day I took off to write in two weeks, in order to get my second book, Collaborative Writing in the Cloud, to a point where I'm happy with it and ready for it to go to the publisher.

I started writing at 5:15 am and continued until 7pm when I prepared and spent time with our incredible group of Flat Classroom certified teachers in our weekly discussion. Finally, at 9:45 last night, I went to sit on the couch.

Now, I'm quietly typing on my ipad as my family sleeps. With my oldest a senior, we are filling out college applications, prepping for his last SAT, and balancing bank accounts to scrounge up the money to send him to college next year. My daughter is a junior with all of the worries that come with being a cheerleader and one of the tallest young ladies in South Georgia. My youngest is off at Jeckyll Island on a field trip but will come bounding home today at 5:30 with endless energy and an appetite to go with it.

And yet, as I work from eyelids open to eyelids shut, it is easy to let the busy cause me to behave like a human doing instead of a human being.

This is the risk for so many of us teachers - we are so busy doing, that we don't spend enough time being. Isee this as a caution to myself and to those of you out there like me.

Are you so busy doing that you're not being?

Sure, I will look back upon these times and smile at the craziness, surely I will. But yesterday, after my children left for school, I took a moment in the hall looking at the pictures of my oldest son growing up. He was so little. He had no idea what the future would bring (nor did I) and he lived on my hip. He was so full of energy and I remember being exhausted and just wanting sleep (because he so rarely does and still doesn't) - now I want to go back in time and hold his little face in mine because he's seventeen now and hugs are the things I ask for for Christmas and graduation. He doesn't get a choice then but hugs are rare. I just want to be his Mom and love him and yet, things are different now.

There are beautiful moments in every period of life. The tough thing is that some periods of life are so crammed with beautiful moments that we're too worn out to notice.

So, right now I'm noticing. I have a heart that is beating that is causing my pulse to move in my foot. That means I'm alive. What a gift! Life! I have the privilege of writing to you as a fellow teacher about to grab a cup of coffee and roll into homeroom to check roll, take my lunch count, and do a dress code check.

Sure, I've got problems and struggles, but I've got a God bigger than those problems and struggles who guides me daily and gives me joy amidst the jungle of activity.

Just take a minute to breathe in and out. Listen to the breath in your nostrils. Really listen. Do you know what a gift that is? That invisible wind being moved in and out of your lungs as your body automatically just LIVES. Do you know how many people have sat beside the bodies of loved ones asking for just one more breath and one more moment? And you've got hundreds of these moments happening automatically, right now, without you having to think about them!

You aren't going to get extra breaths past the moment that will be the end of your life. Your job is to enjoy your life now. This moment.

Find the meaning in this moment and your life will have meaning. Behold the beauty in this day and you're days will come together to make a beautiful life.

Don't waste the chance you have right now to enjoy this moment.

Have a great day. And remember, if you've still got a pulse, you've got a purpose. Get busy and do it.

Editing Wikipedia is something we encourage teachers to do in our book Flattening Classrooms, Engagaging Minds and in our Certified Teacher Course. All of us should at least have a user page. Tasha Cowdy, one of our certified teachers shared her experience editing an orphaned article on Wikipedia. This is something all of us can do to learn about the community of practice built around a sustainable site like wikipedia.

There is a new type of wiki called the "federated wiki" that is the new brainchild of wiki inventor, Ward Cunningham. INfluenced by GitHub, this invention lets you "fork" a wiki page and make your own version with the original author having the choice to integrate your changes or keep it separate. This may be a great type of collaborative writing tool for researchers and academicians who often are concerned about adding to a common repository in that the page could evolve to no longer represent their views but their name is still affixed to the page. On the other hand, those who may not understand it, might incorrectly attribute something that has been forked and edited but not approved by the original author. I like the potential, however. For those of you who do collaborative work, this is an excellent read.

An excellent, useful post from Silvia Tolisano with practice information and graphics about using Twitter in the classroom. This is a must read in edtech classes and in professional development for teachers. Pass it around and learn. In it, she quotes Terry Heick of Edudemic who divided tweets into 3 sections relating to higher order thinking skills: watch, talk, produce. Excellent, useful points about using Twitter in the classroom.

I teach students not to use "weasel words" in their collaborative writing. This includes things like "Many people say" or "it is widely thought" - these statements, unless backed up by a reliable source, lend credibility without fact backing them up. These are words that students should be familiarized with when writing for academic purposes in collaborative writing.

An excellent, useful post from Silvia Tolisano with practice information and graphics about using Twitter in the classroom. This is a must read in edtech classes and in professional development for teachers. Pass it around and learn. In it, she quotes Terry Heick of Edudemic who divided tweets into 3 sections relating to higher order thinking skills: watch, talk, produce. Excellent, useful points about using Twitter in the classroom.

If you want to read how teachers are using digital citizenship in practice, the Flatclassrooms network has lots of great ideas being sharedby teachers like this blog post. One thing we teach the Flat Classroom certified teachers is how to create a CMP (classroom monitoring portal) using Netvibes as depicted here. Digital citizenship should be part of what we all teach.

There are some great things you can do with Google Drive (formerly Google Docs). Here's a lovely post by teacher Helen McConaghy about what she's doing in the classroom with her students and Google Docs. Great ideas.

Love the idea of interactive badges. This is a fascinating idea that is part of the open badge movement. This article from Earth works describes the concept and gives a mock up.
Yong Zhao from the University of Oregon talks about eventually having a system of "microcredits" where you earn small credits for small, discrete things you learn. I see all of these as coming together as part of that shift. School credits and PLU's and CEU's will eventually no longer be in 10 hour increments or hour increments in semesters. The idea of microcredits and badges is evolving and will fundamentally change how we do education. Of course, there are higher order things we teach like thinking that can't be quantified in a badge or something like this and that, as with our testing focus, is where we will likely get in trouble. The commoditization of knowledge and information is likely but some things do require interaction.

Alfred Thompson is right, we need simpler programming languages to use with students and should be teaching and using them as they level up to more complex languages. Great articlel from a man I consider to be the best in Computer Science education thought leadership. Alfred recently left Microsoft so if this is your thing, you may want to reach out.

I have a friend in the food service industry and she says they are scrambling to find suppliers of whole grain everything. If there is a crumb topping, it must be whole grain. She says the guidelines are much more nutritous but are a complete change in the way children have been fed. This article in the Huffington Post confirms that and discusses what has changed. Sadly, this is more important than ever because for many students,this is the only food the children receive.
I think something is wrong with this.If we're paying parents to feed their children and they don't, then there should be consequences for the parents. Children need 3 meals a day at least - I can only imagine how teenage boys are, my oldest son eats at least 6 times a day and is never full. The thought of hungry children should make everyone step up and speak out. I'd like to see people get riled up about this. We are teaching for children and should be advocating for their health.
Glad to see these changes.

"One in seven people between the ages of 16-24 are not in school or working, a new report finds, and it cost taxpayers $93.7 billion in government support and lost tax revenue in 2011 alone."
Disconnected youth cost everyone, but especially themselves. Work has been the most rewarding thing in my life besides parenting.You inherit self respect and self sufficiency.
I think there are lessons more important than content that we teach in schools. Showing up. Persistence. Self respect.Honesty. Work ethic. These are all important parts of living life.
When schools pass along a student to become someone else's problem it becomes everyone's problem. However, schools are penalized for keeping these disenfranchised students in schools because they often do poorly on tests. You get what you measure, however, the measurements themselves incentivize schoools to cast off those who don't measure up.

A searchable repository of news could be so useful in class. Instead of having students "print a news article"to discuss (what a waste of paper) how about a current events blog where videos are embedded and discussed,or have them create a wiki. There are so many things that can be done with this video. I wish the news organizations would release it for download and reuse in student videos (with proper citation, of course.)

If you love to read (like me) and enjoy science and technology, this list will give you many articles to peruse (or add to Pocket if you're getting ready to go on a trip.) As many of us teachers are expected to have reading across the curriculum, there are fascinating topics you could use in science,history, or even literature. Not all of these are for high school use, but all should be fine for college classes.

Parents of specialneeds children want them monitored via video and yet schools and unions protest. Personally, if someone wanted to video me, I have nothing to be ashamed of except that everyone has a bad day and it would be easy to take what is happening in a classroom out of context. If you want any person long enough, you'll find something wrong. I don't, however, see what is wrong with administratorrs filming classrooms and reviewing if necessary.

Jure Klepic calls it like he sees it. Just because someone has a high Klout doesn't mean they are telling the truth. One thing I've learned in social media is that if you want a lot of links and people responding to you BE WRONG. BE CONTROVERSIAL. BE RUDE. I no longer respond to rudeness with links and responses because that is helping the fool who is doing it.
Jure also says to beware of those who call themselves social media experts. He's right. Many of the "experts" are buffoons with few followers (they say that they don't have time for that) and fewer real friends. They like to be listened to by making big bucks with big companies who don't ask themselves if they SHOULD listen to them.
This is a great, thought provoking post about journalism, klout, and ethics.

I love this flickr pool and follow the pictures here to motive me and provide pictures for my digital "frame of fame" in my classroom - this new "socratic oath" about finding the genius in each child is a great one.

Awesome "recipe"to save a file to a dropbox folder and have it printed. I'm going to do this - then I can go to school and have printed anything I need from my ipad the night before. It uses Dropbox, ifttt.com, and automator. Cool and useful.

I am going to be getting this book, which was a topic of discussion last week with Dan Pink. He says that the author (aptly with the last name of 'Tough') says:
"The book takes on what Tough calls the “cognitive hypothesis,” the idea that success hinges on mental processing speed and traditional brainpower. Instead, citing lots of interesting research, Tough shows that “non-cognitive skills” – perseverance, optimism, self-control, and so on – are actually what matter most."
Perseverence, optimism, self control. These are things I drill into my students. "No Whining" signs grace the walls. "Never never never give up" is on my fridge at home. I'm going to read this and perhaps share it with my parents at school. Wow.

I love what Classroom Window is doing by surveying teachers and reporting the findings and am an advisor to the company. They did a fantastic job with their flipped classroom survey and have 5 more. If you care about helping make some sense to the hype, take the time to give your feedback in these areas -- teachers only. (Follow this link to give feedback on these surveys.)
"We’re excited to announce 5 new TeacherView Surveys on Adaptive Math Programs, Classroom Apps, Online Test Prep, Student Response Systems, and Interactive Whiteboards

How to enable offline Google Drive (GoogleDoc) editing and some droid features. As always, Chrome works best with these features. Test them out and try them. Also, you'll want to download the Drive App on your Droid or Apple device.

The "official" announcement of Google Drive which is a mesh of dropbox -like storage and a built in editor of all kinds of things (formerly Google Docs.) You can "install" Google Drive but don't have to to usethe services. Don't get confused, it is still Google Docs, although I've found an enhanced drawing feature in Docs when testing with my students this week.

Stephen Downes, one of the leading thought leaders in edtech, discusses K12 Moocs and their potential. Julie Lindsay and I work with students of this age all of the time. While there are certainly some students who would do well in a MOOC, many need guidance and focus, particularly at the younger ages. It is still possible and doable and something I'd like to work with in Flat Classroom if there are others who might be interested, let us know. vicki at flatclassroom dot org

Google Scholar now has a new feature for those who publish and create articles. It searches articles (in your scholar profile) and will scan the web to find other articles relating to your topics of interest. This is something for researchers to delve into.

"This activity can be used during a science unit on animals. It can also be used as an assessment if a rubric is used." For elementary students, this writing assignment is cross curricular and designed for second grade, but could be adapted. You can align with common core.

Some ideas for creating eportfolios with Google sites. This website has some templates and ideas for eportfolios if you want to use this in your classroom. This website has a lot of resources and is a great one to discuss ideas and find how-to tutorials.

Heartwrenching, heartaching, upsetting, but all too true. For those who want to see inside the life of many US public school teachers, Peter Hirzel has a gutsy, edgy post on salon and says many of the things that are often whispered and said in email. But there is a part that I want EVERY teacher to hear because it reflects something I say a lot to teachers:
"When we have each others’ backs, we are invincible. So I hope all the teachers continue to be kind to one another, because one kind word was very, very often the only thing that got me through the day."
BE KIND TO EACH OTHER. Encourage each other. Smile. Say hello. You are fellow journeyman and deserve each other's respect and kindness. Please hear this. Don't be discouraged, but if you're in edreform and don't read this post, you shouldn't be in edreform because you don't get the conflicting emotions plaguing the psyche of so many teachers today.

This New York Times Oped has the forums at Reddit roiling. It hits so many issues about helping poor children succeed (it isn't all about good teachers) and hits at the heart of the big picture problems that so many kids are having in their lives, not just in schools. We've got tough situations right now in the US often spurred by increasing violence and decreasing stability in the family. This is across the board in many schools, even mine, when parents fight, children suffer. Schools are part of a very complex equation in the lives of children and so are teachers. But to say that a teacher or a school are THE determining variable in the formula of success is wrong. This Oped is a good one and worth a read for everyone.

Jason Connell at lifehack shares the 2 most important things you should do for maximum productivity. I think if you had to get it down to two, these two would be it. (Planning weekly and planning daily) but I like how he describes it. Of course, he's not a Mom of 3 with 4 jobs like I am and so I have to add some other things like daily checklists and routines to be able to keep afloat, but the same basic element is there: plan your work and work your plan. Great article to get you motivated and refocused.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Heartwrenching, heartaching, upsetting, but all too true. For those who want to see inside the life of many US public school teachers, Peter Hirzel has a gutsy, edgy post on salon and says many of the things that are often whispered and said in email. But there is a part that I want EVERY teacher to hear because it reflects something I say a lot to teachers:
"When we have each others’ backs, we are invincible. So I hope all the teachers continue to be kind to one another, because one kind word was very, very often the only thing that got me through the day."
BE KIND TO EACH OTHER. Encourage each other. Smile. Say hello. You are fellow journeyman and deserve each other's respect and kindness. Please hear this. Don't be discouraged, but if you're in edreform and don't read this post, you shouldn't be in edreform because you don't get the conflicting emotions plaguing the psyche of so many teachers today.

With the recent Chicago teacher's strike, now the NHL strike, this is an opportune time to help students understand the history of labor unions. In this set of lesson plans focused around Labor Day, there is a union negotiation simulation and a union election simulation. Wherever you stand on the issue of unions, this is part of US history and something students should understand. I think this is a very balanced set of lesson plans appropriate for many ages, particularly older social studies students.

Every Classroom Matters (Recent Shows)

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